http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-horner-im-not-rider-15
Several people said that the reason he couldn't win the Vuelta clean was because he had never show three week ability before. Maybe its because he has always been clean and couldn't race for three weeks against top fuel GC guys.
We may never know...

by process of elimination i don't know who else fits the criteria of rider 15 other than horner. and his ongoing defense of LA. and alleged statements he's made such as "it ain't cheating if you don't get caught".

Maybe there's dudes on Saturn, Mercury, Astana, etc shaking their heads who will tell a different story. Maybe not. Horner can tell his "story". It might be true, it might not. As I've always said, we'll see.

I find it amusing that he says that he out his data out there and then questions why journalists haven't done anything with it. Yeah, except for the two that went to anti-doping experts wrasses questions. Funny how he skipped over that....

Let's take an alternate view of his performance outside of the "I was getting better because everyone else stopped doping" theory. An aging rider, in the last year of his contract spends the majority of his season injured. Knowing he has nothing to lose, he gambles everything on a massive win. Said aging rider is also allegedly rider #15 in the USADA Reasoned Decision. Despite his denials, it is pretty hard to overlook the similarities between 15 and Horner's history.

Not to mention he defied almost everything we know about aging and physical performance.

Hey if Armstrong can come back clean in 2009 and still finish third in the TdF after taking several years off of cycling and riding against a doped field, then I have no trouble believing that Horner could win the vuelta this year clean as well.

desperation and trying to make nice with cycling news so he can get a job next year. Problem is, no one trusts him or believe what he's saying. This coming from his peers and people in the know, that says a lot right there

agree with CK. way too much circumstantial evidence and it doesn't add up right. over the years, there are lots of 3rd/4th hand stories from his Saturn days, Rene Wenzel has quite the reputation. Much less - Saunier Duval, Lotto and Astana. He's certainly not as naive as he plays it out in the interview

Unless he wants to race in parking lots with Microshift parts he might as well hang it up, when it boils down to it I don't think he wants anyone digging too deeply into what will be known as the Asterisk era

I won't claim Horner was clean. I have no way of knowing. But, with a body type as extreme as Horner's, just nowhere near as good, I can say that I believe what he did at the Vuelta was possible clean because 1) that course couldn't have been made better for his unique set of abilities and 2) everyone who could challenge him had a hard Tour under his belt already. Horner was fresh. 3) Horner has years of experience and rode very smart, using that experience well.

I think the point to look at isn't that a 41yo won a Tour, it is that the season's schedule and Vuelta course allowed this guy with exactly one trick in his bag who has never shown much of anything else to win one of the big ones. (That said, I like it. It was a victory for us not so fast climbers! I relished races with so much climbing it slowed everyone else down!)

Cosmic, I know you and I went round-and-round this a while back but: "Not to mention he defied almost everything we know about aging and physical performance."

The problem is, there isn't enough data on 30-40 year old elite endurance athletes to know very much. Sure we know some generalities about declining endocrine function as we age but those generalities might not apply as well to people who have been active and fit their entire life as they do to people who sit on the chesterfield and get fat for recreation.

I wondered about his comment that no one had analyzed the data. There is also no way that he didn't know about the "programs" on some of his teams (even if he didn't partake).

The only (aerobic) sport that I can think of where physical performance can improve into your late 30's would be long-course triathlon (i.e. Ironman distance races). Many of the recent winners in Kona have been in their late 30's.

This seems to make some sense, since the effort is sub-maxmimal the whole race and it is about endurance. You don't have the anaerobic spikes which would likely cause older athletes issues. However, some of this is also complicated by learning how to race Kona properly...it is a difficult race to properly execute in.

And let's be semi-realistic....he didn't beat the previous record for age by just a little (which, BTW, was set decades ago, he smashed it by over 5 years.

CK, I don't think this is a case of Horner improving. I think it is a combination of a tired and a slower, mostly PED free field and Horner being at his best for his age on a course superbly suited for him.

I dunno Ben.....the guy's entire season was wrecked by injury. I get the "rested" concept, but the idea that he had the mileage in his legs to successfully complete, let alone compete and win a GT seems a bit of a stretch.

If nothing else, the last 20 years have taught us that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Chris senior should take a page from Chris junior and know when to be quiet. I don't see any "I never talked to Geert" headlines (hint, hint journos).

But Chris senior painted himself in a corner with salary demands that were not warranted based on a unique result that, however it was achieved, everyone knows will never be repeated. So now he's a little frustrated.